Andrew Marr's 'Children of the Master' offers a vision of Westminster’s future marred by Machiavellian politics
They’ve made a hash of abolishing tax credits for low-income workers, face the test of an in-out referendum on Britain’s European Union membership that might reveal deep divisions in their ranks, and have to find a new leader before the next election.
The Labour Party has a new leader in Jeremy Corbyn and he has stirred the imagination of many rank-and-file party members.
However, he is loathed by many of his Blairite New Labour MPs who want a leader in the Tony Blair mould, an election winner rather than a protest leader.
Andrew Marr foresaw some of this mess before the election took place and has crafted a novel from his vision.
Marr’s novel takes place a few years from now.
The Tories have taken Britain out of the EU, but can’t hold on to power as Britain struggles to adapt to life outside of Europe.
Labour returns to power, but the new Labour Prime Minister, cerebral and socially awkward, is not effective and his government is floundering.
Discredited New Labour grandees plot to restore their influence by bringing the Prime Minister down and replacing him with a puppet. The leader of New Labour plotters is the Master.
Marr is keen to point out that the Master is not Tony Blair. He just happens to share some of Blair’s characteristics.
The Master has won elections, is pro-business and pro-American. He has made a fortune since leaving office by doing consultancy work for some unpleasant dictatorships, and talks like Rory Bremner doing a Tony Blair impression.
The Master and his acolytes groom two aspiring politicians to be their cuckoos in the Labour nest: Caroline Philips, a lesbian City lawyer, and David Petrie, the last Labour MP in Scotland who is haunted by the ghost of his abusive father.
Philips and Petrie both have something to prove and are willing to sacrifice principles to gain the Master’s favour and climb the greasy pole of Westminster politics.
Marr has a lot of fun plotting the rise of the Master’s children. He satirises the vanity and venality of the media, and politicians’ complicity with it. His main journalist character is so unpleasant he literally oozes slime.
He laments how artificial and soul-destroying parliamentary life in the Westminster bubble can be, whilst describing with relish the Machiavellian tricks a politician can use to get ahead of rivals.
Underneath his satire, Marr looks to explore a serious point.
Does a politician have to be a bad person to be successful and do good things? Marr’s answer is yes.
If you can’t sacrifice some principles and your loved ones’ wellbeing you won’t get to the top in politics.
If you don’t get to the top you won’t be able to do anything.
The good that a politician does is often the result of their desire to stay in power, rather than a product of moral virtue or vision.
This .
It drives Marr’s thriller along as it sets up dilemmas for his characters and simplifies political life to a clash of wills and personalities.
We can only be thankful that, in reality, politics is a bit more complicated.
In real life, good people can do things for good reasons and sometimes they can win, too, by bending would-be masters into servants.
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